


Sweet Dreams

by Freyjabee



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, Halloween, Horror, Miraxus, Supernatural - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27171283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freyjabee/pseuds/Freyjabee
Summary: Because Laxus' dreams have always been lucid, he doesn't think much of the strange visions that plague him in the days following his grandfather's death. But it's getting harder to ignore the voice on the air. It comes to him at unexpected times, in sleep and in wakefulness, morphs his thoughts in unexpected ways, saying the same thing, release me
Relationships: Laxus Dreyar/Mirajane Strauss
Kudos: 6





	Sweet Dreams

The house is as huge and empty as a dead beast's guts. To add to the atmosphere, it smells faintly like rotten meat and chili left too long in the refrigerator. The dehumidifier hums in the basement and occasionally beeps a warning; it's nearly full. Laxus doesn't want to go down there to empty it. He's always hated that basement, ever since he was a kid. It gave him nightmares then; it'll probably still give him nightmares now.

"You'll take care of all the details?" asks Natsu, who has lived with Gramps off and on since public school, first because his parents died, and he and his brother were too young to live on their own. They were adopted into the Dreyar family because Makarov Dreyar had a wealth of good will and no one to spend it on. Natsu came back because his brother was a mess and unable to take care of his apartment, Natsu, and the rent when they were old enough to move out.

"I'll handle it," Laxus affirms. As much as he doesn't like it, it's his job. Natsu may have lived with Gramps on occasion, but the old man was Laxus' blood, and beyond that, his only real family, his father be damned. This is his responsibility.

"If you want help cleaning out the fridge or anything, you know…" Natsu trails off. He looks pale and lost, as though he's just woken up in a strange dream, unsure of where he is or what's happened in the last four weeks.

Laxus feels just as dazed and confused, but at least he has better processing skills. His grandfather isn't the first one to leave him this year, his dad checked out not too long after the new year, clutching his heart in the middle of a movie theatre and keeling over into the seat in front of him, spilling his popcorn, pop, and whatever he'd had for supper into the lap of a prom queen who'd still been crying by the time Laxus showed up.

The point is, he's been through the process before, arranging funerals, settling estates, divvying up miniscule assets. Gramps' are going to be more complicated than his dead-beat father, but only because feelings are involved, not because the old man has much to lay claim to.

Laxus feels a heavy sigh weighing in his chest. He wants to let it out; he doesn't want Natsu's sad eyes focused on him for any longer than they need to be. He holds it in; stuffs it down.

Natsu sees anyway. "I'm sorry, man." His lip wobbles. "This sucks."

"Sure does." Laxus jams his hands in his pockets and keeps them there, suffering through Natsu's heartfelt hug. It does feel good despite his leaving it unreturned; giving into it feels like lying down for sadness, and Laxus Dreyar lies down for nothing but the occasional beautiful woman.

* * *

Three caffeine-fueled days pass. He spends a lot of time sitting on Gramps' balcony, looking out over farm fields, dreaming the day away. A lot of people have called him. Most have been for consolation purposes. At first he answered the calls, but it's been going on the hour, every hour since he's arrived, and he's ignored his phone for… He can't even remember the last time he lifted it.

A shiny Lexus pulls into the driveway. The setting sun glints off its blue metallic paint. A shiny car for a shiny girl. Twinning in the sunlight, Lucy's blonde hair gleams, looking soft even so far away. Laxus' fingers remember combing through those locks. He clutches his hand, fighting away the feeling. That was a long time ago by everyone's standards, not just his.

Lucy stops mid-way up the long driveway and gets out, approaches, crossing the front yard to the country-style porch. Today, she's wearing a high-rise brown skirt, tall brown leather boots, and an off-white sweater tucked in. Her hair is loose and fans out behind her like a train of gold silk.

Lucy has never been afraid to meet anyone's eyes and catches his gaze immediately. Laxus meets her challenge just because it's a challenge. There hasn't been anything Lucy Heartfilia has dared him to do that he hasn't done.

"Hi," she says when she's close. His heart wrenches for no reason he can name.

Lucy has changed a lot in the last four months since she ended their relationship, quoting she needed someone more serious about everything, someone who's going to want her babies and to build a house and settle down. Someone more together than he is. She seems more confident, serious. He can't tell if it's a better look on her. He liked the girl that let herself get dragged into reckless things like skydiving because, though she'd never admit it to anyone other than maybe the journal she kept, she liked the danger of it.

Laxus takes a reprieve from her stare, glancing away for a second. There is a maple tree in the front yard, tall and stoic. Safe. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see if you were alright." Lucy climbs the stairs and perches her hip against the railing directly in front of him.

"Fine." Laxus reaches for his coffee for something to do with his hands; it's mostly empty and so cold, he lets it dribble back into the coffee cup without swallowing. He can't do cold coffee, even in the name of appearances.

One of Lucy's eyebrows raise. She looks sexy and infuriating when she does that. Which is the definition of their twelve-month relationship. They were never compatible. Both were just stupid enough to think they were.

"I'm totally okay," Laxus reiterates.

"So it's someone else's house that has a mailbox full of mail and four-week old recycling sitting out front, waiting to go to the curb?" Lucy has a way of cutting to the bone without much pressure. It's one of the things that drew their incompatible asses together in the first place.

Laxus looks to the front of the house, visible around the veranda and must admit he hasn't looked at the garbage or recycling objectively in weeks.

Lucy comes to sit beside him. Her scent is familiar and comforting. "Laxus." She touches his cheek with her warm palm, turning his face so he must look into her warm, brown eyes. He hasn't noticed that it has gotten cold outside and he hasn't dressed more appropriately. "It's okay to be sad," she whispers, putting her forehead against his. "It's okay to need people. It's okay to reach out to us."

He leans into her warmth, momentarily weak after a lifetime of feigning strength. He touches her hand and feels, for an instant, human. He's missed this. Lucy is comfort. Sanity. Togetherness. Lucy is a rock when he's thrown into a turbulent sea.

They're so close. He kisses her. At first, it's soft and warm and sweeter than what they usually do. He thinks, _we can do this._ They can either move past babies or have them, he doesn't care, as long as she doesn't leave him alone in this cavernous house, wading through all this sadness and this too-big-to-deal-with burden.

Then Lucy pulls away and he's left alone and cold. "I didn't mean that way." She drops her eyes, looks at her hands. "I meant, if you wanted a friend to help you go through your grandfather's things, I'm here."

"Is that what we are?" Laxus says without meaning to. His voice is full of poison and he can't draw it out, no matter how he tries. "Friends?"

Lucy is as innocent as ever, pretending she doesn't notice his desperation. "Yes, of course. And we always will be."

Except, they never have been. Acquaintances, lovers. That's all. Laxus pulls some pride and righteous indignation from somewhere. "I think you should leave."

Lucy looks wounded. "It still feels fresh, I know, but it's been weeks. You need to move on, Laxus. It's hurting you and everyone around you to see you this way."

He goes cold. His anger has been behind a barely closed door lately and it's pushing to get free. "Leave," he repeats.

Lucy blinks suddenly wet eyes and stands. "If you need me, you know how to reach me."

Except, he won't reach out, not to her.

* * *

Another day passes in which Laxus thinks of Lucy's visit and wanders his grandfather's house like a ghost. He goes through fits, sometimes, he's so sad he can die, and other times, he's angrier than he's ever been, and he needs something to hit. He's managed not to ruin anything, but with that inaction, he's come to accept one truth—he needs to do something. Anything. Anything at all.

He decides to prove Lucy wrong. He doesn't need anyone. He can do this on his own.

He starts in his grandfather's room, going through his drawers and finding all the things that made his life special. The first thing was a Christmas card Laxus made in grade one that says TO GRANDPA. Thanks 4 being super. Except, super is spelled SOOPER and the writing is so illegible, Laxus is reminded when he was a kid, he had to take special classes for reading and writing. Grandpa used to come to them with him. This must have been special to him for reasons greater than Laxus understood at the time but that now linger over him like a guillotine.

He's toing another dangerous line. He closes that drawer and moves onto the next. This ones is full of ties he sets aside, thinking he can use them one day. All the other clothes need to go into a donation box. His grandfather was a short man despite the genes he passed onto his son and then Laxus.

The final drawer in the bunch is for his grandfather's jewellery. Makarov Dreyar never wore a lot. He had a gold necklace given to him by his wife when they were kids. He wore that on and around her death, Laxus remembers, and finds it folded neatly in the drawer. He takes it out and puts it over his neck, hoping to feel closer to the dead man but only managing to feel cold, like he's draping himself in things he's not supposed to be privy to.

He finds two wedding bands, one for a woman and one for a man. He puts both in his pocket. One day he might get married. Anything's possible.

The last thing he finds is a book called _Mirajane_ at the bottom of the drawer. When he turns it in the light, the colours on the cover change, like magnesium fire burning underwater, or a dead star, on the brink of going supernova.

It has a latch holding it closed and it's locked. Laxus spends some time trying to jimmy it open, then tries a few keys he finds in the drawer. They don't work. Frustrated, he goes to the kitchen for a screwdriver and jams that into the lock. He twists it until he hears it break and the pages of the book sigh open, blank, not a word writ.

A cold breeze flies through the opened window and ruffles his hair, skating down his back, but afterwards, the world is still, He isn't sure what he's expecting to find inside the book but is disappointed when it's nothing.

* * *

The moon hangs drunkenly in the sky, hinging on the crooked treetops. Laxus watches them from his childhood bed, more exhausted than he is charmed by the night sky. He's had too much caffeine again and not only is he jittery, he's near sleepless. When he closes his eyes, he feels like he could be lulled into that sweet place where the world is quiet and dark, but also like it'll remain lingering out of reach.

He keeps his eyes closed against the storm gathering in the night sky and even puts his pillow over his head. It smells like laundry detergent and faintly like dust. He makes note of hiring a cleaner. Then he thinks about giving up his apartment. The farm is paid off. There's land for him to rent out to make extra revenue. There's…

Sleep catches him unawares. He falls into a seamless dream of black, where the walls and floors bleed shadow. His dreams have always been lucid so it's no surprise that this one feels real.

He wanders through the blackness. At first, this place feels calm, like a moonless night mid-summer. Then it turns sinister in the dark, a warm but stormy night in autumn, the kind of night where large spiders wait to scurry, unseen, up your leg, or where mice nip at you as though you've died and been left to fester in the basement.

In the shadows, someone audibly draws breath.

"Hello?" Laxus tries. He can feel his heart kicking faintly against the cage of his ribs.

Nothing replies except for a slight gust of wind that comes from nowhere and disappears just as fast. He thinks it whispers words but can't be sure.

"Is there someone there?"

His feet sop through something wet and miserable. It's too thick to be water, too warm. Laxus shivers, imagining the things it could be instead.

"Hello?"

" _Hello_ ," responds a sweet voice.

Laxus swivels. In front of him is darkness, behind, darker. "Who's there?"

" _Who's where_?" whispers many voices in tandem. " _Nowhere?_ "

"I can't see you." Anything. He's blind.

" _Let me show you."_

Way far off in the distance, he thinks he sees a red and gold glow. Laxus treads toward it, almost helpless to do anything else.

The sticky wetness beneath his feet continues. He does his best to ignore it; he feels like if he can see it, he'll scream and be unable to stop.

" _Master_?" whispers the sweet voice again. It's threaded through with others', and soon, Laxus can't tell whose is whose, or if they were ever separate to begin with. _"Master, it's dark in here, isn't it?_ "

_"Master, it's cold."_

_"Master, I've been alone for too long._ "

" _Master, can you release me?"_

Laxus can feel the dream get soft the way dreams often do when you find yourself uncomfortable. He can feel himself laying in his bed, and he knows he only must open his eyes to come awake. He waits, compelled for some reason he can't name.

"Who are you? Where are you? I want to see you." Desperately. He knows once he sees her…

 _Then_?

Then…

" _Then_?" the voice whispers. Cold fingers touch his hand, and then he's touching a cheek like porcelain. The skin is fractured. China dropped to the floor. Broken. Forgotten. He thinks of a doll, but the skin is warm, and beneath it, he can feel a pulse.

"Will you let me go, Master?" The words are spoken right into his ear. The voice is deep, sultry, rasping.

He wants to.

Something like an electric shock moves through Laxus' body, head to feet and finally, he pulls himself out of the dream. The sun is too high, the day is too late. He's slept through most of work, somehow. He checks his phone. His alarm went off at six like it was supposed to, but he turned it off. He hastens to make himself presentable so he can make his webinar and make his apologies.

* * *

Laxus works late to make up for the time he spent sleeping. By the time he closes his laptop on a budget spreadsheet, the sun is sagging like the burning eye of an old crone.

He takes off his glasses and rubs his own burning eyes. Behind his lids is darkness that reminds him of the darkness in his dream.

 _"Release me_?"

Laxus opens his eyes with a start. His computer buzzes in front of him, the fan working to cool it off. On the other side of the desk is a railing, and then a stairwell that leads into the basement and the laundry room. The house is quiet, save for a meowing Lily, the black cat Laxus' grandfather saved from uncertain death at a scrapyard four years ago.

"To think, you outlived the old man," Laxus tells him. The sound of his voice is startling in the silence. Lily looks at him curiously.

"They say cats can see into the Nether Realm."

Laxus swivels in his chair so fast, he's afraid he'll fall.

Cana smirks in the veranda doorway. "Scare you?"

"Fuck," Laxus swears.

She laughs, muted. "Sorry."

She's not really, he can tell.

"What are you doing here?" Laxus asks.

"I came to drop off some dinner," Cana says. She holds takeout in one hand and a case of beer in the other. "And some fluids."

He isn't sure he should be drinking. Ironically enough, it's that hesitation that pushes him in that direction.

"Thanks."

Cana walks to the kitchen and opens the fridge without asking. Laxus winces at the mess inside. She pulls out a container of ketchup, which is probably the only thing in there worth eating. "Natsu said you didn't have much here."

"Maybe Natsu should mind his own business," Laxus grumbles as Cana sets the fried food and ketchup in front of him. He cracks a beer.

"He's just looking out for you. You're his only real family now."

"That's a fucking sad state of affairs," he says around the burgeoning swell of affection.

"Sure is," Cana agrees and digs in.

* * *

Tonight, it's not so dark in his dream. A candle burns low not so far away. The closer he gets, the brighter the flame becomes, until Laxus recognizes the coyote skull it's burning out of. It's not wax but fat that keeps it alight. The eyes are bored out and stare at him hungrily from their place on the black floor. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, pretending mostly to himself that he's unaffected.

"Is there anyone here?"

_"Is there anybody out there?"_

"Who are you?" When his mom died, he dreamed of her steadily for three years. This is not her voice, though, and it's not the same kind of dream. This one feels pregnant with malice, where the ones from his childhood were sweet and sad. _You've lost me, Laxus, but I'm not gone forever._

 _"You've found me, Laxus,"_ whispers the voice, " _And if you want, we're going to be together forever._ "

He grits his teeth. "Show yourself."

 _"Do you promise not to scream_?"

He bites his cheek until he's afraid he'll bleed. "Nothing scares me."

 _"Being alone,_ " says the voice. " _Loneliness, and anonymity. Being no one. Being nothing. Those are the things that scare Laxus Dreyar."_

It's his dream, he knows, but he's still chilled by her accurate assessment. "Show yourself, now."

Beyond the candle, shadows part like water in the deep and touch on a pale bare foot. The toenails are black like the night sky. "Are you unafraid?" Her voice sounds much closer, much more human, less threaded apart by many.

"I'm fine. Who are you?"

" _I'm your dream_ ," she whispers. Then, barely audible, " _I'm your nightmare_."

"What do you want?" He can only see her legs, so pale, the light from the flames crawls up them, disappears before he can see anything else.

" _I was hoping you'd notice my despair_. _Let me out of these chains, make it fair._ "

His alarm buzzes loudly in his ear. Laxus wakes with a start, wrenching out of that dark, silky place and back into his bedroom. Two doors over, he can hear Cana snoring loudly on the guest bed. She drank most of the beer last night and ate most of the food.

He crawls out of his bed and away from the creature in his dreams, but she lingers in his thoughts for the remainder of the day, so potent, he almost can't stand it.

He's left art behind in grade ten but on his lunch, Laxus grabs up a pencil and a piece of paper and starts to sketch. He doesn't know anything about her but the shape of her legs, the sound of her voice, and the fracture he felt on her cheek, but when he stops concentrating and lets himself draw, he comes out with an image of a woman-beast that's too real.

She stares into the distance from the page with burning blue eyes. Her hair is the white of fall clouds, just before it snows, and she is cold. She's cold like deep winter, like water under ice, she's cold and she wants to be warm again, he thinks. She's cold and she wants me to let her in.

The picture moves. Wind parts the woman's hair. She blinks up at him. Reaches for him. He feels like if he reaches back, he'll pull her out of the page, into the real world. He keeps his hands where they are.

 _"Are you afraid_?" Her voice whispers in his ear. When he turns to see her, she's not there. He looks back at the page. The picture is still again, though she's looking at him.

* * *

Laxus is reticent to go to sleep. He's left the kitchen lamp on, though he doesn't like to think of why, and turned on the nightlight in the washroom, telling himself that finding his way through a house he hasn't stayed in since he was a teenager is brutal. Two days ago, he stubbed his toe on a dresser his grandfather left in the hallway for some reason.

He lays in his bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, thinking about dreams and nightmares and the fine line between them, about the girl from his drawing and the one from his dream, where she came from and what it meant when she returned to him two nights in a row.

He's had lucid dreams, sure, but he's never had reoccurring dreams. He thinks about calling Cana and seeing what she thinks of it all. She's into that mumbo jumbo bullshit, tarots and spirits and zodiacs and dream reading, whatever. He can't stand the thought of her laughing at him, though, and chooses instead to close his eyes.

* * *

Tonight, the area is a little brighter still. There are several candles strewn around, all the skulls of animals. They smell like putrid meat and burning. Laxus breaths shallowly, picking his bare-footed way through the graveyard, searching for the woman he knows is hiding amongst the dead.

" _This way,_ " she whispers. He follows the sound. It leads him past a cat skull and a boar skull, the skull of a beast as huge as a dragon. When he touches the bone, he can feel it, cold, beneath his hand.

" _There you are_ ," she hums, close. He still can't see her, though she can see him. _"There you are."_

"Why do you keep doing this?" Laxus asks. He does a small circle as he talks, looking for her. "Why do I keep dreaming of you?"

" _I want freedom."_

"This isn't a movie. It's not a book. If you want to be free, just be free."

" _There is no such thing as freedom in my world. Help me, I am hungry and tired._ "

Finally, _finally_ , she steps out of the shadow and into his path. Laxus stops and stares too openly for his own good. The woman before him is the woman he drew on the page, right down to her icy blues. Her hands, when she lifts them to his face, are clawed, her body, when she presses it against him, is supple and warm, curvaceous, and bristling with violence.

Laxus grabs her wrists to keep her hands from wandering. He leans back to look at her face. "What do you feed on?"

"Fear and fury."

He's shaking. And he wants to touch her. As bad as he's wanted to touch anyone. He can feel her body pressing against his, all the warm parts of her, all the cold. Her breath on his lips. Her hair brushes his arms. She's in virtually nothing, some skin-tight thing. He's seen more clothing on strippers.

"What—" His throat is dry. He must try again. "What do I do?"

"Open the book."

He knows which without her having to explain. "What will happen if I do?"

She surges forward and bites his lip hard enough when he wakes, he's covered in blood and he has an erection stiff enough, he's in pain.

* * *

"You have been fucking whacked these last few days." Bickslow has never been one for tact, Laxus knows. He still winces at his friend's spot-on assumption.

"I'm just…"

"You need to come out, man," Bickslow says. "You're all alone in that farm with only Cana to bring you greasy food."

"Eating a salad will make you feel better," adds Freed, who hangs over Bickslow's shoulder on their web call.

Laxus sighs. "I don't feel up to it."

"Which part affronts you? The club, the sexy women, the drinking, or—"

"The amazing salad you're going to eat?" Freed interjects with a sour look at Bickslow that Laxus can at least sympathize with. Like Freed, he isn't sure which way Bickslow goes or if it's both. Nor is he sure where that leaves Freed, who Bickslow hangs off whenever and wherever it suits him.

"All of it," Laxus says.

"Come on, man," Bickslow whings. "Just one night."

Laxus looks at the pile of laundry and dishes waiting for him and thinks again about the cleaning lady he should hire. He sighs. "Fine."

"Great. We'll pick you up." Bickslow ends the call before Laxus can even guess at what time. It's Freed that texts him the details.

Laxus takes himself upstairs to get cleaned up. When he passes his grandfather's room, he sees _Mirajane_ sitting benignly on the floor, though he's sure he put the book on the dresser the other night.

The window is open, and he chocks its unexplained fall up to the wind. He steps into the room. It's a whole ten degrees colder than the rest of the house. He closes the window first, slamming it into place and watching the glass rattle in the pane.

He tries to walk out, but his eyes are drawn to the book, and soon, he finds himself standing over it.

It glitters like fire. The gold embossing of _Mirajane_ shines up at him. He has an inexplicable urge to touch it. _Like you wanted to touch her last night_ , he thinks. Slide his hands over her body, learn her curves. He tongues the hole in his bottom lip where he (she) bit himself last night. It still aches despite the salt rinses. He's getting an erection for no reason he can pinpoint.

"It's just a fucking book," Laxus spits at no one. "Gramps probably bought it to stick his favourite skin mag cut outs in." He picks it up and drops it on the bed. It bounces open onto one of its many blank pages. He thinks about his dream. _Open the book._ He hesitates, then decides he's more fucked if he closes it and leaves it open.

* * *

It's been days since he's shaved and the cold October wind bites into the newly exposed skin on his neck. He tucks into his scarf and his leather jacket, pushing out the cold, and sucks on his cigarette. When he exhales, he can hear the wind sign, too, and imagines she's the woman from his dreams, his little nightmare girl, catching his smoke.

_"Is that what you want me to be?"_

He can feel her behind him, which is crazy. She's not real. He closes his eyes against her touch, her breaths, smoking quietly on the front porch while the moon rises in the sky, until the lights of Bickslow's Dodge Charger sear through his closed lids.

He gets into the backseat though he doesn't fit and listens to Freed and Bickslow talk about the nonsense that's been going on since he's retreated to the farm. Cana says Lucy maybe has a new beau, Gray got arrested for fighting in Fairy Tails' parking lot with his half-brother, Erza bailed him out. She's furious with him, though, and he hasn't left the house since.

It's always the same old thing with the same old people. Laxus finds his thoughts drifting back to his little nightmare girl.

* * *

Bickslow fills his drinks and Freed encourages him onto the dance floor. Laxus Dreyar dances, and does it well, but only when extremely drunk. He feels both lucid and loose. He laughs; he's not sure why. Sometimes, he's on the verge of screaming. It passes with another drink in his hand.

A woman comes to flirt with him. She leaves to dance with Bickslow because Laxus cannot— _cannot_ —be bothered to entertain her. Freed pouts beside Laxus, watching them.

"Just go up." Laxus pushes his shoulder.

"It's complicated."

"Doesn't look complicated." Laxus watches Bickslow dig his long fingers into the woman's hips and push into her.

Freed turns his face away. "He likes it when I watch."

"I don't want to know," Laxus tells him. Yet he's curious. "Like—for real?"

Freed shrugs. "I guess."

"You guys are fucked. I love you."

Freed shakes his head. "I'm getting another drink. Want one?"

Laxus downs his and slides the cup Freed's way. "Yea." _No._ The answer is no, but it's Friday and he doesn't have to work tomorrow, and he's so wound up, he thinks he'll strangle himself to death on the wire.

Freed slides out of the booth. Someone else slides in.

"Laxus," her voice is honey. Her hair is silver strands in the light from the candle on their table. "You're such a fucking mess."

Laxus is distantly aware of Bickslow still griding with his partner, and Freed at the bar watching them, and the mess of people around them, hopped up on alcohol and hormones and sadness. He's _aware_ of the woman next to him, with her bluebell eye bisected by a huge black scar.

She leans into him. One hand is on his thigh so high, he feels electricity moving through him. The other wraps around the headrest. Her fingers brush his shoulder, sharp claws.

"This…"

"Yes?" She flicks her tongue over his lips.

"I—" He trails off as her fingers find the tip of his stiffening dick and scrape across it slowly. Agonizingly. _This isn't real_ , he tries to say. _This isn't happening, you belong in my dreams_.

By the time he gets his words together, she's stopped rubbing him, has leaned away to say something to someone else. Cana, Laxus thinks. He blinks and squints in the darkness. Silvery-blonde hair turns golden and blue eyes darken to brown.

"Lucy," Laxus starts.

She turns back to him, looks sheepish. "I have to go."

Cana helps her out of the booth without looking back to him.

* * *

Laxus thinks he's too drunk to dream. He's so fucked up, in fact, he doesn't remember coming home to the farm, or climbing the deathtrap stairs, or falling into bed. He barely remembers leaving the club. He must have, though, because here he lies, half awake, half asleep, listening to the creak of the birch outside the window.

"And to my voice." She sounds more solid than she did before.

Laxus fights to get his eyes open. Cool moonlight streams in through the closed window. _She_ leans over him, her hair a silver waterfall. He touches it, unable to help himself.

"Where did you come from?"

"Man doesn't remember," she promises.

"Why are you here?"

"Because I want them to. Starting with you."

_I feed on fear and fury._

"You're angry, Laxus Dreyar. Wouldn't you rather not be?"

He would love for a lot of things. He wished he weren't such a narcissist, he wished he had a little more innocence, he wished the day his grandfather died, he wasn't trying to feel so alive.

"Repeat after me: I wish for sweet things," she whispers.

"I wish—I wish for sweet things."

"I wish for violent dreams."

"I wish for violent dreams." He's redolent of the first night they met, still half-sure this is fake.

She gets in close to his ear. "I want you to come alive."

"I want—" He trails off. Her hand is back on his thigh, squeezing. He's hard again.

"I want?" She presses her stiff smile against his mouth and kisses him. She tastes like Laxus imagines poison might, sweet, cloying, and dangerous. All at once, he's sure if he finishes his words, a plague will wash the world in fear.

 _She feeds on fear and fury_.

"Tell me," she commands. Her one hand closes on his cock, the other buries in his hair. He can feel her nails on the edge of sensation. She's almost cutting, almost hurting, almost not. "I want? Tell me."

Laxus curves into her thrusting hand. He feels better than good. The world is spinning, and his body is humming, and he's so lost in _this._ In what it used to be, in what it's become. He's hopeless. He's not sad, though, and that's the most important thing. The most selfish thing. He is, at his heart, selfish.

"And why shouldn't you be?" She pumps her hand over his erection. He holds her close, desperate to feel her. Her body curves. Her breasts are heavy, full, pressing against his sore mouth. Her legs trap him to the bed and her nails cut into his scalp. He's at her mercy and she toes the line of pain. "Tell me what you want."

"I want…"

"Yes?" She bends closer to him, pressing her breasts against his chest. She slides down toward his cock. Her hair silks across his chest. Laxus touches it, clutching her close to him, holding her because he's sure he's the only thing anchoring her to this world.

Her breath caresses the tip of his dick. The sensation moves from his hips up to his chest and he arches into her.

"I want…" Laxus' words get lost again, this time in a moan as she opens her mouth and flicks her tongue across the head.

"Tell me," she whispers. He feels her words throughout her body. And then he can only feel her mouth open and close on his cock, the soft wetness of her tongue massaging him.

"I want you to come alive," he gasps. She takes her mouth away and he comes across his chest, her hand, her cheek, his throat.

She purrs, a cat's smile on her lips. "I'm going to destroy the world."

* * *

Subtly, one small piece at a time. Taking sadness and fear and anger and consuming them until the person is so hollow, they feel nothing. Sometimes, she returns to tell Laxus they survive, and he feels good. Those days, he closes his eyes and lets her climb on top of him. she holds her breasts aloft while her long scaled tail coils around her middle. She fucks him until he can't breathe, and he forgets what terror he's released into the world. Sometimes, she comes back to tell him they fade into smoke, gone, gone like a candleflame, snuffed out and forgotten, because she feeds on the need for sweet things, violent dreams, fear, and fury.


End file.
